But wasn't this game already supposed to have come out? Lol I should have suspected a ton of delays with their track record. When are the PS3 version and PC versions supposed to be released? I was under the assumption that they just now were finishing beta testing but in reality they are just now starting CLOSED beta. Keep the lolz coming SE.

The game launched in 2010 and was in a horrible state. It was so bad that SE decided to essentially remake the whole game. So until last november they had the game running in its previous state but with updates every few months while at the same time more or less making a new game on the side. In november they closed the old version of the game down and put all their efforts into FFXIV: A Real Reborn.

This new version of the game is what is now starting its closed beta and will most likely release sometime during the summer. It really is a new game, but with a few basic concepts (like classes/jobs for example), story and the "same" world (but they remade more or less all of it, but it has the same names etc). New graphics engine, new ui... new everything tbh.

I am sure someone else will explain it better, but that is a short version of what is happening.

They released a new roadmap a while back and have kept on schedule for the most part. So long as we're not all making videos like this " Click Me! " after ARR's launch, I can handle any delays they throw at us. =)

EDIT: Actually I don't know all the forum rules for posting links. This video has a few curse words in it so if I was wrong in posting please let me know and I will remove it. If not, enjoy! Anyone who was here for 1.0's launch should get a few laughs (or cries) out of it. ^^

That video was hilarious! I watched a few videos and the graphics seem to be a lot better but it doesn't have the same appeal as FFXI idk... I may try it out when it's released (whenever that is). Forgive me for not having faith in SE but dude they f***ed us real hard back when this game originally came out.

I'm very glad that SE is taking an "it's ready when it's ready" approach, while also continuing to update us with progress about how things are coming along, so we're not totally in the dark.

Agreed.

Keep in mind though that Legacy Players will be under NDA as well until the last stage of Beta which will be open beta anyways. Technically nobody is even supposed to confirm the fact that they're in Beta, but that kinda gets mooted out when they say that every Legacy player will have access.

... soooo.... yeah. Pretty much the majority of the people on FFXIV's Official Boards will be a beta player as well. I'm pretty sure the NDA will be more broke than a toothfairy in a house full of meth addicts.

This game will never be FFXI. The industry has changed too much since XI came out, and you're likely to never see anything like it again.

I think XI's nuances are what everyone gets nostalgic about, but lots of people who've moved onto more modern games really enjoy the depth of gameplay XI lacks.

We can't forget that beta is not indicative of the final product, so there are going to be droves of people lining up to test the game for reasons outside of quality assurance. Please keep an open mind about the state of the game in early beta phases.

This game will never be FFXI. The industry has changed too much since XI came out, and you're likely to never see anything like it again.

I think XI's nuances are what everyone gets nostalgic about, but lots of people who've moved onto more modern games really enjoy the depth of gameplay XI lacks.

We can't forget that beta is not indicative of the final product, so there are going to be droves of people lining up to test the game for reasons outside of quality assurance. Please keep an open mind about the state of the game in early beta phases.

I'm not talking about gameplay. I'm just talking about the feel of the game, the atmosphere. Vanadiel, the soundtrack, the mobs, the areas, the bosses, it just can't be replicated.

What XI did better than any other game is creating the feeling of space. The zone connections, the map connections, and the continents and ferries and everything all contribute to this feeling that you're actually on another planet when you play. When you're in {sky} you actually feel like you're in the ******* clouds. When you're in Sea Serpent Grotto, you feel like you're in a cave created by Leviathan millennia ago. When you're standing on the edge of the ocean at Selbina, watching the ferries come and go, it feels like an ocean.

No other game, MMO, virtual world, anything, has managed to create that feeling of space for me. WorldsAway came close, but was limited by being 2.5D in 256 colors. WoW comes close, Everquest (one) and DaoC and City of Heroes.... they were all close, but FFXI is the highest standard in that respect. Even with its hard zones, it pulled off creating a perpetual, living, breathing virtual world better than anyone else before or since. I mean, I teleport into Xarcabard, see the snow falling, and shiver because it suddenly feels cold.

XIV 1.0 fell flat because the environments were not varied enough and felt lifeless.

I hope 2.0 manages to recreate the magic that XI has.

Edited, Feb 17th 2013 1:09am by catwho

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FFXI: Catwho on Bismarck: Retired December 2014

Thayos wrote:

I can't understand anyone who skips the cutscenes of a Final Fantasy game. That's like going to Texas and not getting barbecue.

They released a new roadmap a while back and have kept on schedule for the most part. So long as we're not all making videos like this " Click Me! " after ARR's launch, I can handle any delays they throw at us. =)

EDIT: Actually I don't know all the forum rules for posting links. This video has a few curse words in it so if I was wrong in posting please let me know and I will remove it. If not, enjoy! Anyone who was here for 1.0's launch should get a few laughs (or cries) out of it. ^^

It did that by limiting the ability to travel across the world. If you wanted to go from A to B you rode on Chocobo mostly, interspersed with Tele's or Airships depending, but for the most part you were moving across the zones. The key there was you were, not a flightpath or other on-rails auto travel method. XIV had some great distance within it, but with Aetherite teleports you never had to choco very far provided you or someone had Anima.

Creating this feeling of space will require restriction on travel, which comes to the point above by TurboTom in that the industry and expectations on it have changed. Is it acceptable to Joe Bloggs to have to embark on so much manual travel in an MMO these days? I want to say yes, as I personally understand that by doing so you create a more immersive world (in XI terms, everyone remebers their first mad dash to Jeuno on foot) but expectations shift and accomodations may need to be made.

I used to play UO quite a lot in the late 90's, and I remember when I moved on to another MMO and found out that stealing from people was against the TOS of the game and would result in banning I just couldn't get my head around it- I'd been so used to a cut throat world that an alternative just didn't make sense. Now behaviour like that is an absolute given, and I think even despite the oodles of fond memories I wouldn't last two minutes in UO now a day (in a pre-RenaissanceUO I mean) without getting overly frustrated at someone rolling me in the dirt and taking everything I had on me at the time.

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To endanger the soul endangers all, when the soul is endangered it must become a Warrior.

Kordain is unfortunately correct that much of the realism and space of the world came at the direct cost of increased travel restriction. I mean, waiting for an airship made me feel like I was in a realistic, living world, and that was great! Oh, except for the part where waiting for an airship SUCKED. How many times did just missing an airship lead to me unleashing a stream of profanity, followed by 15 minutes of boredom, followed THEN by a boring airship ride, and yes, it was all very realistically boring.

I don't believe it's impossible to create that same sense of space without making travel so burdensome. Allowing players to progressively move more quickly through areas as they move further through the game (but still requiring certain degrees of manual travel) would probably be the solution, but it would be yet another balancing act. And MMORPGs are not known for their excellence wherein balance is concerned.

Never confuse your inference as the listener for an implication of the speaker.

Good games are subjective like good food is subjective. You're not going to seriously tell me that there's not a psychological basis for why pizza is great and lutefisk is revolting. The thing about subjectivity is that, as subjects go, humans actually have a great deal in common.

While I do think that you are both right that the industry is moving away from that type of limits there certainly is a balance to be found. It did suck to wait for the airship in XI for more than a minute or two and for me at least that didn't create any feelings I can't live without to stick around in an mmo. Having to traveling by foot, or airship or chocobo etc. however does actually and most newer mmo are taking this out more and more.

I think there is a middle-ground between what XI was and a pure lobby game is, and generally I think the industry is moving closer and closer to lobby games, to a point where they have gone too far. Or rather, there needs to be a few alternatives instead of every big new mmo going that way thinking it is what everyone wants. Even if there is a bigger market for those types of mmos you have to remember that going that route means competing with all other mmos targeting the same market. Now the thing is that I think there is quite a large amount of people who tend to want something more to the other side. Considering there are so few (if any) new big mmos leaning towards the... let me call them "more timeconsuming" style I do think it would be a very smart idea to actually go for that at this time.

I think it was Gary Gannon who said it on one of the shows on Gamebreaker that he thought there were quite a few people out there that do actually want a little more of the old school type of game mechanics where how you travel might be one of those things. I actually agree, while I do see the genre moving away more and more from the old school type of gameplay I also see more and more people who are getting bored of every new mmo that comes out. Yes the genre might be growing, but even so I've seen so many mmo be highly anticipated, but after a rather successful release numbers plummit because people don't stick around. People have "been there done that" in a way and a lot of these game do not have the same "sticking power" you would expect from an mmo.

Now one might say that this is in part because there are a lot more casual players out there, or that expectations are too high etc. I think that is true, but I also believe that there are quite a few people who don't stick around because quite frankly the worlds don't draw them in and make them want to stay like a few others have in the past. There are a number of reasons for this I am sure and traveling is only one of the reasons for something like that. Now I am not saying XIV should be that game at all, but I hope it doesn't lean too far towards the lobby games either.

Hopefully those who do like more of the old school type of mechanics can get something new soon. I do think there is a market for it and like Gary said the first company to realize this and bet money on it could really make a profit. Of course they also have to realize that this is 2013 and that not everything from back in the day is what is wanted, but rather a improved gameplay and mechanics, but with a few basics being more old school.

I miss old school gaming. I wish they would reloaded ffxi how it was when cap was 75 on a single server. My friends would always quit ffxi for the newest latest and greatest MMOs when they came out but we would always come back within a couple months. I have yet to find a new mmo I have liked as much as FFXI. I don't think FFXIV will live up to it either. I think I will be playing ffxi again in march to get my mmo fix. But I miss FFXI how it was when the servers were full.

Hopefully those who do like more of the old school type of mechanics can get something new soon. I do think there is a market for it and like Gary said the first company to realize this and bet money on it could really make a profit. Of course they also have to realize that this is 2013 and that not everything from back in the day is what is wanted, but rather a improved gameplay and mechanics, but with a few basics being more old school.

Thing is, people have taken that bet, and they've lost.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was created by none other than EverQuest's own creator, no stranger to hardcore MMOs, Brad McQuaid. The game was made by hardcore players, for hardcore players, with a modern look to satisfy the beefiest of PCs. It sold almost a quarter of a million copies when it launched in 2007, and within a year, it was all but deserted. It was a total flop, completely hindered by the fact there wasn't a market for an new EQ-style MMO. It simply ran out of money because it ran out of players and couldn't be saved.

But maybe that was a fluke.

So in steps Richard Garriott, creator of Ultima Online, which was an even older and more hardcore MMO than EverQuest, to take his stab with Tabula Rasa later that year. Surely, the hardcore crowd devastated at the fail that was Vanguard would not forsake this icon of old school MMOs?

But alas, despite adding innovative FPS elements into combat, the players dried up pretty quickly here too. It only survived a year-and-a-half before shutting down forever.

Now, if you're taking a pulse of the MMO market, you're going to look at a casual game like WoW still played by millions and raking in millions, and you're going to look at a more recent, more modern hardcore MMOs like Vanguard and Tabula Rasa taking it on the chin despite being built by the gods of hardcore MMOs themselves. If you're going to invest years and millions of dollars in developing a new MMO that will stand the test of time and make you lots of money, which approach do you think investors and developers are going to prefer?

Most customers want an MMO that has a casual grind to endgame with a hardcore grind to max yourself out at endgame if you really want to pursue it, and they want a franchise they can trust and believe in to keep them there. SE was lucky to have enough rabid fans to make FFXI their most profitable game ever. And Blizzard had years of a solid reputation for great games like Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft to reap the rewards in WoW.

If you really want to play in a hardcore, subscription-based MMO, your best bet is to stick with the old guard that still survives to this day. Keep your sub to EQ, FFXI, EVE or whatever else is left, because they just don't make them like they used to, and as history has shown, it's a money-losing venture to even try.

Most customers want an MMO that has a casual grind to endgame with a hardcore grind to max yourself out at endgame

Most players don't want any kind of grind at all. They want fun and excitement, and a new MMO gives that to them for a while. It doesn't necessarily say much about your first MMO if it was your favorite, because no other game can be your first time. And for most people in the MMO market, WoW -was- their first time.

Most "hardcore" games don't succeed because they have giant design flaws that ensure that new players don't enjoy them. Putting up with ******** is much easier when you already have several years of attachment built into a character. You're already invested in a way that can't be recreated, even by a game that you would have enjoyed twice as much were it your first exposure to MMOs.

Btw, League of Legends is actually more played than WoW now. I would love to comment on that, but I actually have yet to play it.

Never confuse your inference as the listener for an implication of the speaker.

Good games are subjective like good food is subjective. You're not going to seriously tell me that there's not a psychological basis for why pizza is great and lutefisk is revolting. The thing about subjectivity is that, as subjects go, humans actually have a great deal in common.

Most "hardcore" games don't succeed because they have giant design flaws that ensure that new players don't enjoy them.

This. This right here.

There are two major issues with releasing a new "hardcore" MMO after the genre has had all this time to ripen.

1: You need the casual audience. You just do. There are WAAAAAAY more of them and you need them there filling out space in your game. Therefore your game can't be brutally punishing to the casual player, because they'll just leave.

2: It still has to be a good game. The problem with Tabula Rasa (for instance) was that the game itself was fatally flawed in its design. Whether or not you're marketing your game at hardcore old-school die-hard players that eat grind and spit permadeath is that they're only going to stick around if your game is actually good. These are still players, not masochists. They aren't playing a game BECAUSE it's hard, they're playing it because they enjoy the game. There's a difference.

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svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

Kordain is unfortunately correct that much of the realism and space of the world came at the direct cost of increased travel restriction. I mean, waiting for an airship made me feel like I was in a realistic, living world, and that was great! Oh, except for the part where waiting for an airship SUCKED. How many times did just missing an airship lead to me unleashing a stream of profanity, followed by 15 minutes of boredom, followed THEN by a boring airship ride, and yes, it was all very realistically boring.

I don't believe it's impossible to create that same sense of space without making travel so burdensome. Allowing players to progressively move more quickly through areas as they move further through the game (but still requiring certain degrees of manual travel) would probably be the solution, but it would be yet another balancing act. And MMORPGs are not known for their excellence wherein balance is concerned.

Everyone always uses the same argument regarding issues such as these... Modern MMOs require "such and such" due to modern expectations. Specifically I'm referring to the expectations of fast travel from the modern consumer of MMORPGs.

To this I would respond, expectations are a minimum requirement. What I mean when I say this, is that while it holds true I might expect fast travel. However, if a system which requires me to explore the world ala FFXI in a manner which is fun and reasonable, then my expectations, while not met in the manner I had... well --expected, can indeed be met in other ways.

This is not to imply that XI's methods of travel would be a valid concept in a modern game. However, forcing the player to travel the world via a non-teleport method could indeed be achieved, and still provide the player with a great deal of immersion and fun. Not to say this would be easy, however I believe it would be achievable.

Most customers want an MMO that has a casual grind to endgame with a hardcore grind to max yourself out at endgame

Most players don't want any kind of grind at all. They want fun and excitement, and a new MMO gives that to them for a while. It doesn't necessarily say much about your first MMO if it was your favorite, because no other game can be your first time. And for most people in the MMO market, WoW -was- their first time.

Most "hardcore" games don't succeed because they have giant design flaws that ensure that new players don't enjoy them. Putting up with bullsh*t is much easier when you already have several years of attachment built into a character. You're already invested in a way that can't be recreated, even by a game that you would have enjoyed twice as much were it your first exposure to MMOs.

Btw, League of Legends is actually more played than WoW now. I would love to comment on that, but I actually have yet to play it.

WoW was my first and I --hated-- it. I hated the people, I hated the way the game progressed etc. Obviously, this is just my opinion... many people may have their own, and obviously do -- given the success of the game.

Then I played XI and I found the teamwork and sense of community in the game to be amazing. It instantly grabbed my love and affection and never let go... (until I realized that for a healer when I was lv 35, my gear made almost NO difference. That ****** me off.) Point being, I don't think just because something is your first, doesn't mean it has to be your favorite.

Edit: My first "MMO" was actually Diablo if you want to call it a MMO. Oh those ears. Those bloody ears.... and cheat codes lol.

I'm speaking in generalities, of course. Game designers have to think in generalities because what 90% of the people experience is more important in terms of a game's success than what 10% of the people experience. If we brushed off the major trends as "just an opinion" or "not true of all players," we'd be ignoring what's true for most players.

As for travel, as I said, it can be done, but it would be a difficult balancing act. Perhaps an easier method would simply to create a combat-related battle; e.g., chocobo jousting. As you're traveling from one area to the next, you're still attacking monsters. Perhaps a charged up chocobo lancing automatically kills a monster the same level as you, for example.

There are lots of ways it could be made to work, but the industry, SE being no exception, is not exactly great at experimenting with creative ideas. The bottom line is, they still don't know what makes a game fun, so they aren't willing to take risks. Instead, they assure that the game won't be very fun. Mind-boggling, but I guess that will continue to be the case as long as antsy investors are pulling the strings.

Never confuse your inference as the listener for an implication of the speaker.

Good games are subjective like good food is subjective. You're not going to seriously tell me that there's not a psychological basis for why pizza is great and lutefisk is revolting. The thing about subjectivity is that, as subjects go, humans actually have a great deal in common.

Everyone always uses the same argument regarding issues such as these... Modern MMOs require "such and such" due to modern expectations. Specifically I'm referring to the expectations of fast travel from the modern consumer of MMORPGs.

But this is true, regardless if you or I do not like the fact that it is. The market appeal of these MMO games is so much more vast than it was 8/10 years ago. The mainstay of people playing MMO's were solid gamer types dabbling in a relatively new genre to see what it is like. Today, almost anyone plays an MMO of some sort and it is culturally acceptable (gaming in general, and by proxy MMO playing) in society than it was previously. This new set of consumers has a new set of desires and expectations.

I go back to my previous example of Ultima Online, where many a time my character was killed outside of one of the main towns by a PK and robbed. When you died, any items in your posession were left on your corpse. By the time you made it to a healer and back to your body, chances are whoever make you take a dirtnap in the first place would have walked off with your stuff. Yes, including that Vanq Halberd with a market price so high it literally took you 2 months of crafting to afford.

Can you imagine that taking place in modern MMO's? That fully unlocked Empy weapon you got just being lifted from your inventory completely legitemately within the game system by another player, never to be seen again?

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To endanger the soul endangers all, when the soul is endangered it must become a Warrior.

I won't quote it all just because it would be such a long post so I just edited so that it is clear who I am responding to, hope that is okay.

The thing is, when I said there are more and more people who are getting a little bored with what most people call "the new mmo get used to it" I didn't say that is the way it was in early 2007 (WoW primetime even for myself) which is when Vanguard was released. Not to mention that if you played Vanguard at release you would have seen that they released waaaaaaaaay too early to be given a chance by anyone for more than a week really. You could not even see your headpiece at launch just to name one of the things that show how much work the game still needed. It was a release now or never situation because of funding and I doubt anyone was very surprised when it didn't work.

As for Tabula Rasa (Also released six years ago) I didn't play it myself so I can't really say anything about it really except that just because a game is made for "hardcore" gamers doesn't necesseraily mean it is a good game that the players they are aiming for like. Look at how many "regular" mmo there are out there and look at how few there are that actually do well even when they have the money to complete what they start, to market the game beforehand to create incredible hype and have a good brand behind it.

SWTOR is a great example really. It has done pretty well and they spent more money than any other mmo has ever done, they had a well known and loved company in Bioware making it and it had one of the biggest brands behind it in Star Wars. Even with this they went below a million subscribers within six months from release and kept going down, which isn't too bad at all, but you also have to remember it needed 500k subs just to break even. Looking at the stats of how many "regular" mmos being made vs how many that actually do really well I don't really see your argument working out. I mean how many mmos had to be made to actually get a game as successful as SWTOR? Two games aiming for a specifik type of player and doing badly doesn't necessarily mean others have to fail as well. In fact, looking at circumstances like timing, funding, marketing, brand etc suggest they were not very likely to do well even if they had been something more like other mmos (Pure speculation of course, but hardly a bold statement considering how few mmos that are actually really successful).

Like I mentioned earlier I am not saying I don't understand why more or less every new mmo being made aims for a more WoW type of game as opposed to older mmos. On the contrary I completely understand why they do it because they want what WoW has, or at least a part of it while at the same time risking as little as possible and there is a larger crowd for the "WoW-era mmo". However like I mentioned in my earlier post trying to appeal to WoW players with something like that means competing on equal terms with WoW (I am saying WoW, but I mean more or less every mmo out there that isn't niched to something very different from WoW).

I believe there is a market audience that would jump at the chance of playing something different that might be a little more old school (I am hesitant to say hardcore here because I believe hardcore should be about skill rather than how much time people can put into something. Oftentimes playing a lot means more skill, but I think we can all agree that waiting for Japanese midnight to finish quests and the like doesn't improve anyones skill) if there is just something that is as well polished and backed as some of the other more successfull mmos out there. Of course it has to feel new and fresh in a lot of ways and I believe there is a lot to learn and take away from the newer mmos, but work in some elements of the older mmos as well and you just might get a great mix.

I understand why this hasn't happened yet and might never happen (Even though Everquest Next looks interesting), I just believe it might be a mistake. Like I said I am not saying they should "make them as they used to", mmos have to evolve and I would not want to play a pure old school mmo with touched up graphics. I also don't agree that history has shown us that what I have talked about would be a money-losing venture because what I have been talking about is not what Vanguard or Tabula Rasa was, nor do I think it was even the right time for it.

You might be right that my best bet if I am someone who wants to play a more old school-like game is to just go play an old school game, but I hope that in the future there is at least a successful alternative, something with the best of both worlds.

For the record... be it old school, new school or future school, all I want right now is FFXIV. :P

Regarding travel, I think they'll do it right. I liked how once you got an Aetheryte activated in 1.0 you could fast travel to it. It's kind of the best of both worlds, you are required to explore, but once you find the place it's not painful getting back there again.

Ah, well, the legacy beta testers will be able to confirm or deny that in a little over a week.

Although, I'm pretty sure a NDA is still going to be in effect for them as well. :X

As for travel, I generally miss it. Yeah, missing an airship sucked, and the airship could be boring (although I always loved watching the world pass by, especially if you used Windower), but I miss that sense of immersion. Games too often constantly remind that you're doing just that, playing a game. I don't mind it much in console games, but MMO's were always different to me. The biggest reason I wanted to get into MMO's when I was younger was because I love pen and paper games. The thought of exploring a new world with other people was just so exciting. For a while, it really was like being someone else for me. Granted, that went away over time (I was like 13 or 14 when FFXI came out), but most of my early experiences truly felt that way. The world felt massive, had substance, and it made everything feel epic, especially since turning the wrong corner could mean imminent death.

Having played WoW for the past few years, I can say I haven't that way ever since TBC was released. The game is completely safe now, you fly everywhere so you can never die. You can fly from side of Pandaria to the other in about 3-5 minutes, making the world feel incredibly tiny. You can do almost everything standing in one spot and queue'ing, and the few things you actually have to go out to do tend to be meaningless. (Pet Battles/Achievement hunting/etc) I don't know, perhaps I'm ranting... Ah well... I just hope FFXIV retains the sense of danger and magnitude that FFXI had. :)